ZSRx: Lifelong Learning

ZSRx was an innovative effort to bring lifelong learning opportunities to the greater Wake Forest community. These free online courses were designed to be informal ways to connect alumni, parents, and families to new skills and ideas in an interactive online learning environment.

Previous Courses

RootsMOOC: A Free Online Genealogy Course

If you’re like many, researching your family history has been one of those fascinating pastimes that has always seemed just out of reach. There are about a million different places to start and just as many different ways to get overwhelmed. Without a little guidance, it’s easy to write off genealogy as one of those projects that are just too big for one person.

We in the Z. Smith Reynolds Library wanted to change that. We wanted to convert hesitant researchers like me into knowledgeable, confident family historians. To do this, ZSR collaborated with the fantastic librarians at the State Library of North Carolina to create a free online genealogy course, RootsMOOC, which ran from March to May of 2015 and enrolled more than 4000 learners.

ZSRx Tweets

This fun, three-week course sought to engage newcomers to social media in a discussion of how to get started with Twitter and how we use the ubiquitous micro-blogging service in our personal and professional lives. The course ran in the spring of 2014 and enrolled more than 200 learners.

ZSRx Digital Publishing

This informal, three-week online course explored the “past, present, and future perfect tenses ” e-books, self-publishing, and the digital publishing landscape. The course emphasized the intersection of books, technology, and commerce as the framework for examining the massive shift underway in the publishing world. This course ran in the winter of 2014 and enrolled more than 400 learners.

ZSRx Parents & Families: Deacon Development 101

This four-week online course for parents and families of Wake Forest students sought to bring participants to a fuller understanding of how this generation experiences their college years. The course explored how parents can help their students develop crucial skills like resilience and self-advocacy, and how students might develop greater awareness of their own identities. Participants interacted with student development experts on campus while learning about how students can reach their potential and find their niche on campus. This course officially concluded in November 2013. For more information and course resources, see A Parent’s Toolkit available online.

ZSRx: The Cure for the Common Web

ZSRx: The Cure for the Common Web, the very first ZSRx course, reached more than 700 alumni, parents, and family members. This four-week online course explored tools and techniques for using the web to increase productivity, search effectiveness, evaluation skills, and awareness of issues related to privacy on the web.

Highlights from ZSRx

A New Online Experience

“I’ve been very impressed by the thoughtful comments from group members and the willingness to share and help others. This is a new online experience for me and I’m glad I am participating.”

A Place of Learning

“As an alumnus, it made me feel reconnected to WFU as a place of learning. As alumni, we can easily stay connected socially, but this sparked an excitement in that we could be students again and feel a part of the academia at our beloved school.”